I had to endure my yearly exam today, so I made an appt. with my doctor…but had to make it on the side with her nurse because my doctor is so busy!  I love my doctor’s nurse because she is so sweet and bubbly and personable.  Anyway, I have not seen either of them since last June when we had started the adoption, but had not finalized it. 

Let’s back up: My OBGYN is the lady that started the tests to see why I wasn’t getting pregnant…her sweet nurse had to inform me of my Day 3 levels being so high that my body was overworking to create an egg which usually happens in menopause. This doctor prescribed me Clomid and then had to take my three phone calls informing them that my cycle had stopped and they gave me Progesterone to get it going again. My OBGYN had to beg me to stop trying to get pregnant after getting the Lupus diagnosis because I had a blood clotting disorder and antibodies that could damage me and my baby if the levels got out of control and she was very much against prescribing the meds I would need to be pregnant.  She is a high risk doctor and informed me that we would have ultrasounds every week and lots of monitoring, likely a C-Section because a pregnancy with these numbers would be very high risk and dangerous….imagine getting that news! My OBGYN is the one that referred me to my reproductive endocronologist (sp?) that ultimately gave me the dreaded news that getting pregnant was not an option.  Imagine sitting around a table with a doctor and your husband and him dropping the bomb that “you will likely never get pregnant”.  In his defense, he had my ultrasound test and vials of blood that confirmed my levels were post menopausal with eggs that were likely bad due to my autoimmune disease…so his diagnosis was exactly what I needed to hear so that I could shut that door.

I am praising God for his honesty.

Some doctors would have taken my money and done a lot of experiments to see “what if” or “we’ll try”.  The outcome could have been great or disastrous, but our money was limited and we were ready to be parents.  My insurance only covers the diagnostics of infertility, but not the treatments themselves, so what I needed that day was honesty and he generously gave it to me.  His exact words were “I could take your money, but it won’t likely result in a healthy pregnancy.”   Door shut…we mourned and moved on.  I know we were meant to go to him to get the truth.  I commend couples that keep pursuing pregnancy even if it does not work the first time, but for us it could have been dangerous with my illness…so we needed to stop.

Back to today…I went in for my appointment and she was politely asking about my summer without saying anything specific.  I finally just asked, “Do you know we adopted a baby and I am a mom now?”  Her face lit up and she said, “Yay!  I did not want to ask, but I was hoping you did…we talked about that option last time you were here.”  I got to take out my phone and our birth announcement and show off my boy.  Of course she had all kinds of questions and she even cried a little when I told her about his birthparents.  She was genuinely happy for us and praising God with us for the miracle of infant-open-adoption…the adoption that allows me to be there from the beginning!!  Now you can see why I love her so much!

The good news is: I am thankful for these people that celebrated with me today and rejoiced over our son.  She told me of all the patients that she sees both young and old…none that she has treated have ever chosen adoption as their plan.  That could be for a lot of reasons, but she was excited to hear our story and commended his birthparents for doing what was best for the baby. 

Now the awkward part: The worse place for an infertile woman to be is in the OBGYN office..talk about babies everywhere!  Couples looking at their first ultrasound, ladies waddling about to burst, ladies that just had their baby and were coming in with the child for that first post check up, couples finding out the gender and lots of pregnancy everywhere I looked.  This time, I could take it because I knew I was going home to my son…well technically a Chipotle first, then my son…but I felt for the women in there that might be there to get tests like I was a year ago to find out why I wasn’t getting pregnant and what I could do about it. 

What a difference a year makes.